MAYBE DAY 2023 is our 4th annual virtual celebration of the lives and ideas of Robert Anton Wilson. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Mr. Wilson’s Sirius contact experience, and as such, I encourage everyone to embrace their weirdest and wildest hopes & dreams
We will be re-engaging the COSMIC TRIGGER on July 23rd 8:08 AM UTC at www.maybeday.net
Let this serve as a clarion call for RAW art, video presentations, writing, and whatever else besides!
You can either send in your work to be featured on the Maybe Day site itself, and/or submit a link to be added to the NEW TRAJECTORIES WEBRING. (https://new-trajectories.com/)
The idea is simple: Make something cool • Share it • Explore the others!
You can contact me here or at RGC777 @ gmail . com Approximate deadline for submitting Maybe Day offerings is July 15th
Also! As always, in the spirit of Discordians sticking apart, do please feel free & encouraged to create & post Maybe Day content using your own ways and means. A decentralized and self-organizing Maybe Day would be just the thing to keep the lasagna flying onward and upward to ever greater glory.
And I think the joy of art is trying to convey what you perceive so that other people will perceive it more or less the same way. Art is a form of seduction. I mean, there are rapists in the intellectual world. They become politicians. The seducers become honest. We try to seduce people into our reality tunnels instead of leading them there with a gun. But we are trying to get them into our our reality tunnel, or our reality labyrinth, or whichever it is. In my case, it’s a reality labyrinth.
When I call the universe infinite, I do not assume it is infinite in space-time. But it has infinite aspects. Which means that anybody who looks out will see something different, but anybody else who looks out will come back a day later and look at it again and it will still be different. William Blake said, “I see infinity in a grain of sand.” And you can, if you’re open enough.
“If you can’t say FUCK in public, then the terrorists have won.–D. Scott Apel.
Towards the radical abolition of time as history, in favour of a more flexible playtime where 1994 and 1977 (for example) feedback to each other through the porthole of stagecraft. The Strange Intimacy in the dramatic plays of W.B Yeats, partly influenced by Ernest Fenollosa and his contact with the Noh play tradition of Japan. Within, the accumulation of techniques taken in the Poundian’ sense of that phrase. The exploitation of lighting, stage projection, sound effects and costume all-at-once in a Wellesian’ fashion, sharp transitions. Ritualistic and ceremonial jams with space for improvisation and embellishment, yes. The fair and rare scientific language of higher states of consciousness, further clarified and made new by actors and stage magix, singing, dancing, shouting.
The process of time and humans gathered together: actors, props, lights, sound, projections, choreography, costume, writing, production, promotion, not to mention food travel shelter and personal hygiene. All this, ALL THIS came together in a unique intersection point, or series of intersection points, to lean on a phrase from Burroughs. The words and the lights and the sounds and the ears hearts minds and bodies of both performers and co-conspirators, the audience co-mingled, wrestled together with a Robert Anton Wilson Universe.
Often times i felt the words jump of the script and into the walls, or the mouth or face of another. Letters are OFF the wall. Language of poetry thrown up onto the stage, balls and all. Total transformation of mind and ALL that resembles it. The sheer rush of hearing the wise words of RAW, and many of his cohorts projected into the air with such finesse, attention to inflection, cadence, the swing of the word, amped-up expressive decoration and embroidery.
Cosmic Trigger Play, in my humble opinion, and to curve your ear a little, might have been to the delight of RAWs tribe. I mean to say, RAWs unfinished great work ‘The Tale Of The Tribe‘ criss-crosses with Cosmic Trigger Play in that TTOTT players William Butler Yeats, Marshall McLuhan, Orson Welles, and Perhaps Joyce and Pound may have enjoyed the stage play IMHO…Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Fenollosa, Shannon and Bucky too (google em’ & git bck. to me with yr/ thoughts) I’m getting at, or digging into an idea about the hermetic nature of theatre, the multi-media of it ALL, and how the new play satisfies many of the quality critters that Robert Anton Wilson invoked in his last great unfinished work TTOTT. At least TTOTT represents the direction i would like you, dear reader, to ramble into. Please excuse my using it as a playful spring board to get into reviewing the play itself.
RAW would have been moved and inspired if he were around to see the Cosmic Trigger Play. He would have loved it. Sorry to invoke a cliche’ yet i think it important to consider RAWs position on current events, and not just political and or metaphysical but concerning the creative arts and new media, to attempt to reconsider some of his critical thoughts on the art and culture, social psychology and a further refined focus on theatre. Makes sense right? (you can find all the details about the who to the what now if you type ‘Cosmic Trigger Play’ into any search engine. But wait.
Okay, maybe the best way to push onwards is git’ the 23K (x4) and do it all again. Cosmic Trigger pulling remains an open game, the new Universe sits gleaming in the moonlight. Sparkling, full of stars orbiting planet word. A Cosmic Trigger Play pulled off and etched into the mind-body-speech of a sleepless crew of initiates. A crew ready to roll. Let’s go get em’. (Already feeling terribly confined here in word-world, trying to talk a bit about Bob and the TTOTT and the play and ALL).
Tom Robbins once stated words to the effect that if roughly 15% of the population were reading and acting upon the works of Robert Anton Wilson we might see a new enlightenment/renaissance, or something equally epic and encyclopedic. Of course i agree, and you can find loads of my writings across the web echoing this sentiment. READ HIM. Go to the source.
The tale of the tribe brings together a dozen innovators from history, reaching back to Giordano Bruno (16th century) and into the 21st Century (Claude Shannon). A current of renaissance men, who share a part to play in both the gestation of ideas and influences upon Robert Anton Wilson, and upon Internet. Yes, INTERNET. RAW seemed to be a BIG fan of Internet. I feel he would have supported Wikileaks, Snowdon, EFF, Open Source Projects, Chaos Computer Club meetings, Anonymous, Aaron Swartz, Jacob Applebaum, Cory Doctorow and most Internet rights activists. And i think he would find facebook an amusing distraction from his hologrammic prose.
Lets co-create a new Universe or theatre of the mind, where each and everyone of us can think and act in multiple dimensions, working on many levels, in synchrony, considering set and setting, speech and place-time. Making the invisible visible. Let’s do it again to the gates of eternity.
PART 2: THANKS TO ALL THE COSMIC CREW
Thanks to those wise beings who donated food to the backstage area and those who were kind enough to buy a cast or crew member a well deserved drink. Greg and Wolfy and the Liverpool crew. Mario Dimaggio of Immersive Dome Theaters, and Toby Philpott who helped manage the Maybe Logic Dome at the Find The Others Festival, and all the other performers and exhibitors. The London Film crew who set up at lost, the random helping hands all over the place, the Cosmic Trigger Band, optimistic ideas from Harvey Webb, music and good vibes from Youth, and the phalanx of other musicians and DJs who performed at the ‘Find The Others’ festival, and those who played in London. My friends Emily, Scott Groves and Kev Lane for showing up. Lisa Lovebucket and crafts, Beccy Strong photography, Jonathan Greet photography. And on…
All the strong willed ones who helped transport the entire set and many of the crew back and forth to locations in Liverpool, and in London.Special thanks to John Sinclair, Caleb Selah, CHU and all those who supported the crowd fund launch party and donated time, services, equipment and money to the whole trigger pulling process. Alan Moore for continued support. All the supportive video clips from Douglas Rushkoff, Nina Conti, Irving Rappaport, Alan Moore, Jamie Reid, Bill Nye, John Higgs and those i forgot. To Jack Sarfatti for agreeing to meet with Nic Alderton for an interview in S.F. Special thanks to Rick Rasa, Sandhya Sanjana, Michael Ray, Matt Black, Youth, Tim Eggmond, Dominick Clementson, Caleb Selah and all the voices of the cast for all the musical contributions.
A standing ovation for the hundreds of cuddly crowd-funders and thousands of supporters across the planet who re-tweeted, forwarded by email or better yet spread the word-by-mouth of the impossible play made possible. Big up. And a nice one to the reviewers and those who published in support of the project, in particular the Liverpool Confidential and the Independent. And, finally, to those who did not get a mention, it really sits with you now, so thanks in anticipation. I feel fortunate to have had such a schooling process collaborating with the following sleepless crew:
Actors Oliver Senton – Robert Anton Wilson Kate Alderton – Arlen /Jano Watts / Miss Portinari Dixie Mcdervitt – Luna / Ensemble Lee Ravitz – Kerry Thornley / Simon Moon / George Dorn Andrew Mackbean – Dr Timothy Leary / Hagbard Celine Josh Darcy – Ken Campbell / Gary Kerstein / Greg Hill / Ensemble Tom Baker – Aleister Crowley / Robert Shea / Ensemble Daisy Campbell – Mavis / Prunella Gee Claudia Egypt Bolton – Eris / Ensemble Robert Wells – Slim / Goat Boy / Ensemble Katy-Anne Hellis – Karuna Wilson / Angel / Paula / Ensemble Larry Sidorczuk – Albert Hoffman / Ensemble Nick Helweg Larson – Postman Irving Rappaport – Jaques Vallee / George Harvey Webb / Ensemble Peter Wilson – William Burroughs Nick Marcq – Alan Watts Michele Watson – Lead Ensemble Amanda Maye Steele – Ishtar (wed/thu/sat mat) Elizabeth Sandford-Richardson – Ishtar (fri) Katy Claire – Ishtar (sat) Robert K.G Temple – As himself (sat)
Team Daisy Eris Campbell – Writer and Director Michelle Watson – Conferestival Director Dominic Search – General Manager & Webtech Nadia Luijten – Stage Manager & Social Media Claudia Boulton – Production and Popery Nic Alderton – Production, perks and Film Polly Wilkinson – Graphic Art & Merchandise Scott McPherson – Projections and Virals Steve Fly – Music Director Chris Farncombe – Lighting Design Sadie Spencer – Lighting Desk Padrigo Brown – Scenery & Props Maester Dominick Clementson – Sound Desk (wed/thur) Josh Chedwin Evans – Sound Desk (fri/sat)
Credits Christian Wach – Website Design Jonathan Greet – Stills Photography Andrew Ab – Stills Photography Adam Clark – Stills Photography Bobby Campbell – Initial Artwork CHU – Illuminatus Set Painting Gary Acord – Initial website hosting Lee Isserow – Camera Liverpool Michelle Olly – Promotions & Vibes
PART 3: RE:VERSE-RIGGER
thus was it in time here with discordian sounds of Sun Ra and Tim Leary in my head 1973 1993 to infinity time has come ready
1950s & 1990s mixed with Nixon era cointelpro paranoia 3 stooges of interplay on many levels
Bogart and Saul Goodman totally Orson unhinged gates of eternity hyperreal investigation
trigger pulled lasagna launched comets and interstellar regions crossed acid Crowley Lilly love scene
timespace and speechspaces reshaped to travel-time the eternal nowness of Robert Anton Wilson Universe breathing chanting enochian
captured and shored by Daisy Eris and her pirate ship of initiates bound for planet mu mu unbound from the page to the stage pulling it all off
blowing minds out of time into-starseed-spaces light body voice speech enactments towards decohere… cosmic trigger with claritas humanitas and hilaritas
Black Mass Scene – Visual Projections and Photo by Hagbard Celine
Hi I finally got around to posting this, it’s been hanging around for a while. I hope you’ll forgive my errors, any feedback will be well received.
So friends…which events seem important to you? Which would you choose to define any given period of time? How do you make sense of them, what conditions nurtured them, which human interventions and which natural disasters led to the events you pick?
If we are to make sense and meaning of history, and sanity–a risky endeavour in these times of global Internet but one which any poet worth the name might pursue–then a ‘poem including history‘ of the last decade seems a good place to start to me. (after writing this introduction I learned that Mark Zukenburg and facebook plan to release a ‘timeline’ application that allows for a similar chronological study of events. However History also moves in cycles, and non-chronological spirals, it is of my opinion.
The launch of Wikipedia in February of 2001 has impacted this writing a great deal due to the simple list of some events deemed worthy of inclusion by the Wikipedia commons group, that are made available for all to see and make sense of at your own risk. The risk seems to me to be somewhat reduced when attention is paid to the subjective nature of perception, and to methods such as ‘operational language used by some-but-not-all scientists and ‘E-prime’ and its variants, used by some-but-not-all linguists.
When put Into chronological order it becomes increasingly difficult for me to avoid drawing conclusions based on the ordering, one thing leads to another, or so it seems to a linear oriented mind set. The question remains: which ‘events’ should become pivotal ones and which shall be relegated to the footnotes or relegated all together? How did the author or protagonist come to choose such events based on which values and principle, what ordering system, what right knowledge? How many are justified by later events and how many need revision, considering, let’s say; the Wikileaks exposures of the period 2007-2010, or the News Corp. phone hacking racket?
RAW and I met while he was making this Documentary movie in Santa Cruz with deepleaf productions. I swiftly got involved in the project, presenting different ideas and some support and contacts. I have one copy left here in Europe! But now it has appeared on youtube so i suppose this is the unnanounced global launch. Enjoy. —Steve Fly Agaric 23.
Robert Anton Wilson – Maybe Logic: The Lives And Ideas Of Robert Anton Wilson
Contains over 3 hours of material including Maybe Logic feature, expanded interviews with all the featured RAW cohorts, maybe logic exercises, and original, non-simultaneously, DVD-randomized footage of the best of Pope Bob.
DEEP SCRATCH 